Theater Outings

Two thirds of the trips we quote are four-hour trips. That default is the single most common mistake on a theater night.

Do the arithmetic. Dinner at 5:30, a 7:30 curtain, a musical that runs two and a half hours, and you are back at the curb after 10:00. From the first pickup that is five hours, sometimes six. Ask us to quote the evening you are actually having.

The rest is easier. Theater groups are small, and small groups here tend to decide about three weeks out, which works for most performances. It gets tight when a Broadway tour lands on a spring Saturday, because that night is competing with prom and wedding season.

For ten or fewer riders, a Sprinter limo is the Valley default and a stretch limousine is the dressier minority. A midweek performance gives you your pick of either, because weekends swallow the overwhelming majority of the dates we are asked for.

Nobody needs a dance floor on the way to the symphony. What matters is getting in and out gracefully, hearing each other talk, and arriving unwrinkled.

• Two to four couples: the 10-passenger stretch limousine. The low, wide bench seating is forgiving in a suit or a cocktail dress.
• Parents or grandparents along: the 14-passenger executive Sprinter has forward-facing seats and a full-height doorway, which is kinder to knees than sliding down a limo bench.
• A book club or a family of eight to twelve: the 12-passenger limo Sprinter, where you can stand up to get to your seat.
• Fourteen to eighteen, like a season-ticket club or an office outing: the 18-passenger party bus, with the lights and music kept low on the way in.

Not sure how dressed up everyone is getting? The dress code generator gives the host one sentence to put in the invitation, which ends that thread quickly.

Every theater has its own approach, and knowing it beforehand saves a scramble at 7:20.

• Orpheum and Herberger: a few blocks apart in the downtown core. One-way streets and light rail shape the route in, and on nights when the Suns or Diamondbacks are home the streets back up early. The Footprint Center guide explains how game nights change downtown.
• Symphony Hall: shares a block with the convention complex, so a big convention changes which curbs are open. See the Phoenix Convention Center guide.
• ASU Gammage: Mill Avenue and Apache in Tempe. Touring nights fill the lots and surrounding streets a full hour before curtain, which is the best argument there is for being dropped at the door.
• Mesa Arts Center and Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts: both sit in walkable downtowns, so dinner and the show can share one stop.

West Valley groups have Arizona Broadway Theatre in Peoria, and Gilbert has Hale Centre Theatre in the Heritage District. Both are short, easy evenings from nearby neighborhoods.

Theaters do not wait. Many hold latecomers in the lobby until a break in the first act, which can be twenty minutes in.

• Be at the door 30 minutes before curtain. Will-call, security and a lobby drink all take longer than you think.
• Give dinner a full 90 minutes, and tell the restaurant you have a show. Kitchens near the theaters hear it every night.
• Check your real drive time for that day and hour. North Scottsdale to downtown is about 35 minutes on a Sunday and close to an hour at 5:15 on a Thursday.
• Agree on where you are meeting afterward before you walk in.

Lay it out in the event timeline planner and check each leg in the Phoenix drive time calculator.

The Valley's performing arts calendar runs fall through spring. Touring shows, the opera, the ballet and the symphony all program the cooler months, and December productions pull the biggest crowds of the year.

That overlaps with the busiest stretch for group transportation, so a December weekend or a spring Saturday deserves more notice than a Wednesday in October.

Summer shows are fewer, and they are when a driver earns the money. A downtown garage in July means several blocks in dress shoes at 105 degrees, then a car that has been baking for three hours when you come out. A cooled vehicle at the curb on both ends is a completely different evening, especially for older guests.

Making a full night of it? Our special dinners page covers how long to allow for a tasting menu before a show.

Theater trips are quick to quote when we know four things: the venue, the curtain time, the pickup city, and whether dinner or drinks are part of it.

Add the running time if you know it. That decides whether the driver stays nearby the whole evening or the night is priced as two separate transfers. Ask which makes more sense for your plan and we will tell you straight.

The mistakes we see are small ones. Groups pick up at four houses and lose 40 minutes. They book dinner too far from the theater. They assume the show ends on a round number and leave no room for an encore or a slow coat check.

Give the back end of the evening 30 minutes of slack and nobody spends the second act checking a watch.